Kind of touching further on my point of comparing specialists...
I do have a saga I'm in where I'm kind of playing a Mentem specialist[1], and there's another Mentem specialist (with a focus in ghosts) who totally owns me in that field, but I give him a run for his money with dealing with people. Who's more powerful?
[1]He has an affinity with Mentem, but he also has a Magic Addiction and his concentration isn't super high. His average Int+Concentration roll to control his addiction is going to be 13, which effectively caps the level of his spells at 25. He's very likely to be a generalist, a magus for all seasons, or someone I hope he can grow into, anyway.
That's were we disagree, i think that it is a flaw in a game system when a way of doing things is hugely better than an other.
Would the story you tell be any different if the Pe/Vi specialist and the Pe/Co specialist had as powerful combat spell as each other ?
Do you really think that being the best fighter is what a Vim specialist should be ?
And I didn't compare magus in that argument i compared Arts and Guidelines that do very similar thing : killing, so you didn't answer my argument you sidestepped it on purpose .
I am not comparing power between magi that does completely different things, i am comparing the power of killing of two (three) guidelines.
And saying : hey that one is overpowered.
By going into the specifics and into pure game example you are getting out of the subject at hand "Spells That Reduce Might" and my position on that is :
They are too powerful compared to other ways of killing stuff, I showed it to you by comparing it to another guideline that kill stuff and could do it wit other guidelines.
Pe/Co is by essence the art of killing stuff it should be the best art to kill stuff ^^
Should you be able to fly with Rego Corpus? Presuming the Base 15 guideline of moving quickly in any direction, what's quickly? Before you answer, let's move on to Cr(Re)Auram, here's it's unequivocally clear you can fly, but it requires concentration to do so, and it's a very high level spell already with Concentration duration, and you fly at 40 mph. So, going back to quickly, is it 40 mph? Is that quick for the form of corpus, for the form of corpus it's unbelievably fast, since the fastest runner in the world is in the 20s. Why shouldn't one form do something better than another form, sub-optimally designed spells have a history in the Order and are totally "mythic."
It's arguable as to whether the Vim specialist is the best fighter. He could also be super effective at taking magi out of combat by throwing some warping at them, too. A dangerous magus is going to use any tool at his disposal to fight with. Not all creatures are corpus, not all creatures are magical, and certainly not all creatures are magical creatures of the form of corpus. The Vim specialist is utterly out of his field when dealing with killing mundane humans. The corpus specialist when dealing with magical creatures that aren't related to Corpus. When the two collide the Vim guy has the edge, but the corpus guy wants the vis. Now what? Not all stuff is magical, not all stuff is mundane... How these things are killed is a big determination. If you don't care about the vis, blast it away, by all means, if you wan to preserve the vis, then you have to work a bit harder at it. I don't see a problem with making someone work harder for "treasure."
Cr(Re)Au lvl 30 vs ReCo lvl 25 (+1 magnitude for higher speed so let's say 30) is nearly the same, and on top of that you choose something that arrange you.
And of course it is normal that the ReCo combo is better as moving a human body than Cr(Re)Au, it's made for it.
And I could add that to be equal you have to at least add an Animal Req to the ReCo because you can make animals fly with the other one.
I am comparing very very similar things not using the Art made for moving Air and the Art made for moving the body on which one is the better at moving... a body.
Of course some arts are better at doing things than others but it's a matter of degree...
There is no reason to use anything else than PeVi to destroy a creature with might (except vis hunting).
By my understanding of the Rules, most of the Perdo Corpus examples don't work - if you cast 17 inflict light wounds spells at a creature, the result is that it has 17 light wounds (and a wound penalty of -17), not that it's dead.
Cr(Re)Au level 30 requires three arts to get within striking distance of the casting score for reliability. ReCo has two. And then you sidestepped my question how quick is quickly for ReCo, is that as fast as the wind, 40 mph? Within the mythic paradigm, that's a bit more than quick, it's amazingly fast (for that reason I choose 15 mph, which is faster than most people can even run). And if one were to drop it down to a personal spell, just to make oneself, fly you now have a 20th level spell versus a 30th level spell with requisites. Shouldn't one be better than the other here? Yes, you could make a pig fly with Wings of the Soaring Wind, but you really can't follow him along, can you? The spell is clearly designed to let the caster fly, other use is limited to quick hops to where the caster can see and safely let the recipient of the flying spell land gently.
Well, there are all the things the beasts of virtue can do in the RoP:Magic book...
Once it picks up enough penalties its crippled. Walk away, let the creature collapse and slit its throat.
No, demons are sent to Hell when might goes to 0 or their physical form is destroyed. Forever. Very clearly stated on page 29.
The guy has 90 might. He really needs better powers. I do note that Multiple Casting requires each spell to be rolled for individually. And the fast casting penalties don't exclude casting Multiple spells with Multiple casting. Second you have an arcane connection. If the Faerie can't reach out and kill you indirectly you should NOT go face to face. Just go:
Trolling Faeries for Fun and Profit-PeVi-5
R: Arcane T: Ind D: Mom
The target loses three points of Faerie Might
Base 1 + 4 Arcane.
And Mastery: Trolling Faeries for Fun and Profit. 1 (Multiple Casting)
Combat: Sit self in Magic Aura 7. Use Loud gestures and Motions.
Rounds 1-10000: Using Multiple Casting average you get one (1) quadruple explosion that ends on a 6 or higher which ends with a penetration of 96+10-5=101. The guys magic resistance is a mere 100 (90+10 Faerie Aura.) Which means with one good solid day of casting you can score 1 hit. After six (6) penetrations however, only 83 will be needed. Which conveniently happens on a triple explosion followed by a 0. This means penetration is happening thrice per day now. Next day is 72 resistance, for five hits. 57 resistance means 7 hits average. 36 resistance and he's dead at the end of day 10. Which isn't even enough to distract our just out of apprenticeship magus from his lab work. Oh, and since this spell can be learned by a 0 art magus, and the mastery takes a season to learn, this could be done in an apprentices third year (one year opening, one teaching the spell and one teaching the mastery) or the first year if the magus is nice to the apprentice.
An arcane connection in the hands of an enemy magus means you are dead if they have the spells and time to exploit it. Not, dead if they have a high penetration. Not dead if you leave the Aegis. Just dead.
For my games, I simply house-ruled Perdo Vim effects to match Perdo Corpus effects, with the actual might reduction being the 'wound penalty', more or less. The guidelines I used:
PeVi 5: Inflict 1 damage to Might of a single Realm (same level as PeCo to inflict a light wound.)
PeVi 10: Inflict 3 damage to Might of a single Realm (same level as PeCo to inflict a medium wound.)
PeVi 15: Inflict 5 damage to Might of a single Realm (same level as PeCo to inflict a heavy wound)
PeVi 20: Inflict 10 damage to Might of a single Realm (same level as PeCo to inflict an incapacitating wound)
PeVi 30: Destroy a creature of a particular Realm's Might, killing it or rendering it mundane (same level as PeCo to instantly kill.)
It doesn't fix the problem, but it patches it to be comparable to Perdo Corpus and Perdo Animal.
o_O, I checked, and checked again... And that's true... We started playing Ars Magica 5 years ago and as there are 5 boxes to mark off light/medium/heavy wounds assumed that at the sixth one you checked the next level one.
Thank you
But that is even worth in regard to balancing because you can't chip off at a big creature (that is good IMHO) with PeCo but you can with PeVi...
True but lot less heroic
I told you I have no problem with the Arts combo made for moving a human body (ReCo) to be better than the Arts made for moving air (ReAu) at moving a human body.
And I told you it's a matter of degree, The difference between damaging a creature with PeVi and with other Arts (all of them) is too great :
You kill easier and faster
You destroy MR
You destroy their offensive powers and penetration
Damage done is permanent
That's too much of a difference in my book for Arts that are supposed to be able to do something similar (killing stuff).
I don't say that there should be no differencies but when you begin to see people all taking the same virtue (Focus) or the same attack spells (Dragon/Faery/Demon/Angel Eternal Oblivion) it means that there is a flaw in the game.
I never said you couldn't compensate with stories, i just feel that it makes for better stories when the game is balanced right (and balanced doesn't mean that everything is the same).
You are looking at this from a Narrativist perspective and refusing to leave that perspective, I am looking at this from a Gamist perspective and telling you that there is a problem and that it is not a narration problem but a game balance problem.
Tell me, is there a story you couldn't tell if the game was properly balanced in that regard ? no, there isn't so having this unbalanced does not add to the story it takes from it (you said yourself that some story the PeVi specialist must be excluded from).
I stand corrected, that changes everything
When you do that you do exactly the reverse of what I think should be done : you make lower level creatures harder to kill and higher level creatures easier to kill.
The Might Soak i introduced earlier has both the advantages of not changing anything in the published material and allowing the PC's to have fun fighting low level creatures.
With your system it's a level 25 spell to one shot a might 5 pixie, with the normal system it's a level 5 spell, with my system it's a level 5 spell
With your system it's a level 50 spell to one shot a might 25 ghost, with the normal system it's a level 25 spell, with my system it's a level 35 spell
With your system it's a level 50 spell to one shot the King, with the normal system it's a level 90 spell, with my system it's a level 130 spell
More, your way of doing things doesn't prevent the biggest issue of PeVi, the fact that you can chip at big creatures too fast. We tried something similar before settling for the Might Soak, we said that the DEO guideline was without the voice parameter, that is almost the same as your HR, but it was not so good.
We killed Beogart a might 30 demon in one round just 5 years out of apprenticeship, and thought that this was not doing it for us.
Faerybane would just have to cast it 30 times so that's 6 rounds and there is no botch dices when you master a spell to level 5
How about trade offs, because, as you said, I'm a narrativist. The ReCo spell is lower level, a bit more reliable, but not as fast (15mph). The Cr(Re)Au spell is almost three times as fast, but a bit more of a bumpier ride. Compare them to an automobile, like a sedan to a sports car.
Totally cop to it. I'm a narrativist. I'm interested in the story. The questions of how something gets done is largely a forgone conclusion in Ars. The why and the aftermath are much more interesting places to explore anyway. Trying to balance the Arts with respect to one another is, to me, a Sisyphean task. Ars is too complex to try and balance, but I do use rubrics to measure what is reasonable to put things in perspective, for things to make sense, at least in my mind. You want a character that can fling something big out of gauntlet, go for it. Now what. What else is he going to do? The PeVi specialist doesn't lay waste to every creature he spies, because some of those might be tied to vis sources, and he needs to exercise prudence. How fast he kills something is almost immaterial to me, since a similarly powered Ignem or Auram master could kill something about as quickly. In that respect they are balanced (immunity aside).
That's a bit of a strawman, isn't it? The game will never be balanced. Certainly you and I are not going to agree on what is balanced that is clear. I play in games where I know they have different sensibilities than I do, but I don't see any of those troupes striving towards let's get all the Arts balance, and then let's balance out combat so that grogs and companions aren't so weak.
A mastered spell out of combat is cast using a non botching stress die, i.e. a quality die (as defined in 4th Edition). The quality die should not have been excised from 5th edition, as there are many places where a non botching stress die is rolled, and that doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well...
Won't answer, have already answered and it's sterile to keep going on.
Never said that ou were, said that you were looking at it from that point of view.
Me too.
Out of subject.
My problem is not only with players doing it, but why PNJ's wouldn't ?
Sorry if you don't like it but combat is part of the game and being able to defeat Faery kings (I speak about the might 50 one not the cheated might 90 ones that the authors were forced to put in the book because of the rules discrepencies) too easily is not a good thing for the story...
Again I am not interested in you telling me how to play as a game master, i am interested in talking about rules no stories made to not use them.
No, he is not able to do it as easily or as universally.
No it's not.
Perfection is unattainable but we can try.
We can't agree because you keep talking about stories in balance issues, that's a flaw in you reasoning. You keep saying that it's not a problem because you can go around and not have the magus do is thing, then why does this rule exist if when it's used stories must avoid it ?
And you keep ignoring my arguments so I repeat myself : I am not trying to balance arts one against another, i am balancing a PeVi Guideline against the environment of the magi for them not to be able to wipe out the floor with too powerful stuff. That is a necessity for stories to be interesting.
Even not using or avoiding the problem like you do is a kind of HR.
OK, i am stupid and play bad roleplaying games and you are great and play good ones
Could you please stop pretending you hold the Mighty Stick of Truth ?
Oh and Grog and companions are supposed to be weak, that's part of the game : magus are not supposed to be able to wipe the floor with faery kings that never was part of it.
And again, i am not striving to balance all the Arts, just saying that one of the guidelines in one of them is not good... But yeah keep making me say things I didn't that's nice.
I am a SG, i don't hear my players telling me I am bad at it, i weave stories like you do... So could you please be a little more considerate ?
My experience is vastly different than yours. I don't fix anything until I see it being broken or it's really unclear. I stipulate that it's possible for the PeVi specialist to defeat creatures with might slightly easier than any TeFo combination.
I concede the argument, Doogy. I never said you were a bad SG, nor did I say you said I was a bad SGs, nor did I think I even implied it.
Sorry I snapped, you obviously are not interested as much as i am in tweaking the game.
I hope you won't hold it against me in future arguments.
We agree that PeVi is best for destroying creatures where we disagree is that it bother me and not you
I enjoyed most of that talk (except the end) and I thank you for that.
As see your point, and I understand it, but, as discussed before, this contradicts LoM (fine, it's a HR), but also creates inconsistencies.
Either the spell occurs at best at the same time as the opposing action, and you can't teleport/fire a PoF before you get sliced, just (to quote you) "at the exact same moment the sword slices your belly open"
Or the spell can occur before the action is completed, and you can teleport/Fire your PoF before this happens.
I can see a ruling saying that some momentum is still carried, so that you still takes some damage, but then, it shouldn't convey the same force, and the damage should be lessened.
It ignores PeCo "disintegrate" spells: You can teleport before the grog strikes you, but you can't disintegrate him before this happens?
Likewise, it ignores that not all actions are instantanenous, so under your ruling, one can create a wall to stop a running grog before he's reached the Portal that'll teleport him, but can't kill him before, only as just as he teleports. IIRC, normal spellcasting also takes one round, it's not "zap", so why can't a magus be interrupted in the middle of his spellcasting*?. And so on.
IMO, you'd maybe be better of either disallowing fast-casting entirely, or, probably better, just the fast-casting mastery (If players spont offensive spells, they won't spont much, or not for long).
Replied here, as this has nothing to do with spells that reduce might, nor even really the discussion Doogy and I were having generally about story. We did touch on fast casting, but it was because that fast casting was used in Doogy's example and was based on several assumptions that I happened to disagree with or looked to be house rules.
The latter. If you want a an anti-demon-field, add linked trigger and unlimited uses and use recursion. e.g.
Cross of the Devil's bane
This object is a medium sized wooden cross. When placed in a room and activated it continuously casts "Purge the Chamber of Demon's" (destroys 5 Might, Penetration 16) with each casting triggering on the previous one.
The activation trigger is a short prayer.
Effect:Purge the Chamber of Demons (as Demon's Eternal Oblivion with R: Touch and T: Room so effect is -1 magnitudes) (Pe Vi 10), Penetration 16 (+8), Linked trigger (+3), Unlimited uses (+10). Total effect level = 31.
.
